Like Sight For a Seeker
by aprilhope
Summary: Sequel to A Taste For Red. 2nd in my Five Senses of DG Series. No longer enemies, but not quite friends, Draco and Ginny talk about Quidditch, life, love, and the dreaded Harry Potter.


A/N: I decided to make this a five-part series! Thanks to those who encouraged me to write more. This one follows A Taste For Red. No theme this time, so it's not as funny... maybe slightly more romantical... but it's still fun. Now, part 2...

**Like Sight For a Seeker**

by AHS

"Hey, Ketchup-Breath."

Draco Malfoy sat in the middle of the Quidditch pitch, the lone figure remaining after the day's match. Lone no longer, it seemed. He lifted his head, though he knew who it was, to see Ginny Weasley approaching. It was the first time either of them had spoken to the other since that unusual getting-to-know-you in the Hogwarts kitchen a couple of weeks earlier. He was both pleased and vexed that they now had an excuse, of sorts, to talk to each other... At the moment, he really didn't want to be bothered.

"What are you doing out here, little Weasel? Come to gloat?"

"Now why would I do that?" she asked, surprisingly sitting next to him. "Your team played well. Even fairly clean, for Slytherin."

"It's not enough that we lost, but you have to accuse us of good sportsmanship?" Draco sounded disgusted.

"Sorry. I meant to say you were vicious, unscrupulous, amoral animals out there."

"Don't patronise me, Sugar Shock. I know I lost the game for Slytherin."

Ginny quirked an eyebrow at the new nickname, which was not discernibly negative, then moved on to surprise at Draco willingly taking the blame for something. "Wow. Even when you're putting yourself down, everything's all about you!"

"What are you on about?"

"There are six other players on your team, you know. It takes a whole team to win or lose."

"No, it only takes a Seeker. The rest of them can knock their silly Bludgers and Quaffles around all day long, but it all comes down to the Snitch. He who gets the Snitch gets the win, gets the glory... gets respect. You don't understand the pressure involved!"

"Oh, I don't? First of all, it's he or **she** who gets the Snitch. Have you completely blocked out last year?"

Draco sat up straighter as he suddenly remembered. He'd gotten locked into thinking of her as a Chaser. But she had been Gryffindor Seeker the year before, after idiot Potter got himself banned. She'd been good, too. Not anywhere near Draco's league, of course... but good.

"All right, so you understand a little. At least you never had to play against bloody Potter."

"No, I had to replace him! You think that was easy? And contrary to popular opinion, low expectations do not help. All I heard from Angelina and everyone... even my parents... was 'We don't expect you to be anywhere near as good as Harry, just try your best.' Even when I caught the Snitch, there were these little whisperings about how Harry would have caught it much faster."

Draco shook his head, now indignant on her behalf as well as his own. "I just don't get why all these supposedly intelligent people fall all over themselves to worship the broom he flies on. It's not even just Gryffindor anymore; it's spreading like a sickness. He's not that great! He's just an attention junkie with a misery fetish, and..."

He stopped when he noticed Ginny had her wand out, pointed at him.

"Watch it, Malfoy. One, you're wrong. Two, you're talking about my friend."

Draco got a memory flash that went back a little over four years... to Flourish & Blotts bookshop, where a young Ginny, fire in her eyes and steel in her voice, had warned him to leave Harry Potter alone. Comparing now to then, her eyes were only embers and her voice was not as hard, but he still didn't like the sense he was getting.

"So I guess I was right?"

"Right about what?"

"Four years ago, when I called you Potter's girlfriend."

Ginny sighed, recalling that memorably hateful first encounter with Draco. "Harry is not my boyfriend and never has been."

"But you want him to be," Draco surmised, having seen a slightly dreamy look pass over her face. "Blast, Ginny. Despite your questionable drinking habits, I thought you had better taste. What do you see in him?"

Though he was insulting Harry, she smiled at him... for invoking the chocolate syrup, and for calling her by her first name for the first time. "A lot of things. He's remarkably brave. He's smart. He's good-looking." She heard Draco scoff. "And he saved my life. But he is simply my friend... with maybe a few remnants of an old crush mixed in. It's faded."

"Good," Draco sniffed, nodding, not noticing Ginny's look of confusion at that response. "What about... what's his name... Dean Thomas? You still with him?"

"I, um... yes."

He gave her a look of scrutiny, and spoke, sounding amused. "Are you sure?"

"We've been having some problems is all. We're fine."

"What's wrong with him? Or would it be quicker to ask what's not? I mean, he's tall... and he's a not completely dreadful Quidditch player, if I'm being kind... Seems more than a bit dull, though. Why don't you just go out with Binns?" Draco asked, making himself laugh with the comparison to their droning ghost of a History professor.

"Nothing is wrong with Dean. He's great. I just..."

"Can't stop thinking about someone else?"

_Yes, actually... But maybe not who you think._ Draco was leaning in towards her, to punctuate his teasing, but she knew he was referring to Harry. How ironic that he chose now to not think everything was about him.

"Weren't we talking about Quidditch?"

Deciding to let her change the subject, he lay back, one arm behind his head. "I miss you playing Seeker, you know."

Ginny hesitated for a second, then joined him lying down on the grass, staring up at the sky. "Oh yes. So much that you'd forgotten until a few minutes ago."

"But I've remembered now. I liked competing with you for the Snitch."

"Why? Because it was easier beating me than Harry?"

"Can we agree not to say that name again this conversation? My ears are starting to bleed."

Ginny laughed at his overdramatics. "Sure."

"Excellent. Now, contrary to popular opinion," he said, tossing her recent words right back at her, "I don't like getting everything easy." Spying her skeptical look, he pressed on. "That is usually how it happens... and the getting everything, I like... But I'd rather earn it by being the best... which, of course, I am." His smirk of superiority fractured a bit as he remembered why he was out here sulking. "Most days."

Ginny, having just begun to wonder why in blazes she was feeling like she wanted to cheer him up, was grateful when he kept talking.

"As for you, you gave me some decent competition once or twice. I would have won a lot faster if I'd known at the time all I had to do was cast a spell to make it rain chocolate syrup. You'd have been too busy catching chocolate drops on your tongue like a little kid in the snow to bother catching the Snitch." He laughed, wondering why in blazes he said that. Now he was thinking about her tongue and that chocolate...

"Don't make me retaliate with a tidal wave of ketchup," she threatened playfully, sitting up.

"Better than a Bat-Bogey, but try to restrain yourself anyhow."

"Oh, if I must."

She was laughing, and he couldn't help but get a little caught up in it. The sound was almost like music, and not that crap his parents listened to. The sun was putting fire in that deep red hair, her ivory skin was blushed with enjoyment, and her eyes held something like kindness... disarming for how newly it was aimed at him.

"Mostly, I'd much rather have your face coming towards me than... you-know-who."

Ginny paled dramatically and Draco realized what he'd said. He sat back up quickly.

"Not **the** You-Know-Who... I meant the runty little friend of yours Seeker whose name we said we wouldn't mention. Sorry," he even said, quietly, watching her start to breathe again.

"It's okay." Ginny shook off the upset quickly. She could say his actual name. She could say 'Voldemort.' Once you've been possessed by a Dark Lord, being scared to say his name seems a bit silly. But she had been relaxed and having fun... with Draco? Yes, she actually had been... and hadn't expected that to come up.

Draco hoped she didn't think he was a Death Eater. Not that he'd really taken a side yet. He knew what was expected of him, especially now, with Lucius Malfoy in Azkaban. He was to take his father's place. And though he had kept trying to win his father's respect and approval, like any son, Draco had begun to realize a few years back that he might not want to be like his father after all.

"Draco?"

He snapped out of his thoughts and looked at her. She was pointing at his left hand.

"Are you hurt?"

He looked down at the hand he realized he was cradling in his other, uninjured hand. He'd done something to it during the game, and he must have put his weight on it without thinking when he sat up.

"I kind of banged it into the ground when I dived down for the Snitch and... missed," he grumbled. "It's fine." He tried to circle his wrist, to illustrate the point, and felt the pain shoot all the way up his arm. Not wanting her to see, he did his best to ignore it.

Ginny heard his intake of breath and somehow knew he had swallowed a scream. Where was the big baby she'd heard about who whimpered and begged for Hemione's mercy, or who acted like he was at death's door when a hippogriff barely put a scratch on him? Shouldn't he be demanding she go fetch Crabbe and Goyle to come pick him up and carry him in to see Madam Pomfrey or something?

She reached for his wrist, carefully, and looked at the underside. "This is turning purple, Draco. Why haven't you gone to the hospital wing yet?"

"Having a Quidditch injury is only cool when it's obtained for the win. If I'd dived for the Snitch and actually caught it, I would be in there with my little fan club, recounting over and over again the tale of exactly how I was most painfully wounded and still managed to win for Slytherin. As the first part didn't happen, neither did the second."

Ginny found that answer exasperating, but she also understood. She was understanding him, strangely enough, better all the time. "Would you like me to heal you?"

"What?" That was the last thing Draco had expected.

"I can try, I mean. I'm pretty good. Considering it as a career, actually, healing."

"You're serious?"

"Well, that way you don't have to risk going to the hospital wing and people thinking you're uncool. This way, the only one who knows you're uncool is me, and I knew that already." She smiled brightly and took his left hand in hers, the fingers of her right hand loosely gripping his hurt wrist.

"What are you doing?"

She very gently moved the hand she was holding around, stopping movements when she felt him tense. "The better I know your injury, the better I can fix it... That is, if you want me to."

He couldn't quite believe what he was agreeing to. But, in a bizarre way, he trusted her more than he did most people he knew. "I suppose so. But you better be careful, because I will sue."

"Yeah, good luck with that one. I have near to no money, and you're not getting custody of my Pygmy Puff. All right... " She finished her tests and stilled their hands. "It's not broken, at least. Probably a bad sprain. No circulation problems, that's good. Your hands are... nice and warm." Ginny hoped that sounded medically important, because she did not mean to say that. She took her hand away.

"You know what they say... Warm hands, cold heart."

Something in the way Draco said that made her sad. "I think it's the other way around."

"Let's see." He reached to bring her hand back, with his good one this time. He felt her fingers, frozen, so unsure if they should curl around his. "Cold," he said. "I guess that proves it. It's true both ways."

Maybe it was the effect of being so close to his eyes... that blue-grey not quite like anything she'd ever seen... but time seemed to slow for just a moment. _Cold hands, warm heart. _Draco was complimenting her, with no insult hiding behind it, no look of contempt or kidding. It was a little terrifying, him acting so... not coldhearted.

"Um, that's my wand hand," Ginny said, and he let go. She turned around to get her wand, and her bearings, relieved for that second's break from him. Taking a deep breath, she faced him again, this time all business. "Keep your wrist still. This might feel weird, I think, but then it should be all better."

She hadn't seemed nervous before, but now she did. He wasn't going to back out, though. He winced slightly, bracing himself. "Do your worst, Weasel Healer."

She aimed her wand carefully at his wrist. "_Episkey_."

Draco felt like she had set his wrist on fire at first, and then like she had doused him with ice water. When his sense of temperature normalized, he realized the pain was gone. He looked and saw that even the scrapes and bruising had disappeared. His wrist was as good as new.

"You did it."

"You don't actually sound surprised."

"I'm not. You're kind of dangerous, you know."

"Dangerous?" Ginny repeated, not sure she'd heard right. "Me?"

"By that I mean... you're pretty powerful. And you know what you're doing. That makes you dangerous, at least to certain people. My face breaking out in bats was bad enough, but I bet you could do worse..."

"Enough with the Bat-Bogey, or I'm going to hit you with it again just to make it worth how often you bring it up."

"You really could have made a marvelous Slytherin."

Ginny was trying hard to take that as what was surely a remarkable compliment in his eyes, but her face must have shown the automatic disgust.

_I won't take that personally or anything_, thought Draco sarcastically, before trying again with something she might rather hear. "And by that I mean... thanks."

The word "thanks" seemed uncomfortable just coming out of his mouth. She got the feeling that was not a word he said to many people, so she appreciated it all the more.

"You're welcome," she said, meaning it.

A few seconds of silence gave Ginny's brain time to kick in and remind her that she should probably get back to the Gryffindor celebration inside before her friends came looking for her. She stood up, brushing off her robes, and Draco stood up, too.

"Are you, uh... you leaving?"

"Yeah, I should."

He was just perfecting his couldn't-care-less face when she spoke again, effectively ruining that good work.

"Do you really think I would make a good Healer?"

"Oh. Sure you would. You fixed me up, right? You even made it seem like you cared that I was hurt, and that's impressive. You've got this... adopt-a-villain, care-for-all-the-magical-creatures, I've-got-thirtyseven-brothers-and-I-love-them-all kind of bleeding Gryffindor heart. And heart for a Healer is like sight for a Seeker." Draco mentally kicked himself to stop talking and mumbled, "You'll do fine."

Ginny just looked at him.

"What?"

She bit her lip and decided. "I'm about to be dangerous. Just don't try to bite my neck this time."

Before he could even panic over what that could mean, she had walked up to him and wrapped her arms around him. Ginny Weasley was hugging him.

Ginny had gotten an impulse and wanted to take it, so she did. It was just a hug. She thought absently about how she'd never realized how tall he was, maybe even taller than Dean. And when his hand came up belatedly for an adorably awkward back pat-pat-pat, she stifled a giggle against his chest, thinking he did smell rather nice.

Draco thought this was the oddest and most enjoyable thing he could recall ever happening to him. The girl Weasel in his arms, and of her own volition. It felt almost obscenely natural. He breathed in and smelled wildflowers, silently groaning. Those one or two occasions he'd referred to where she had given him a run for the Snitch, he blamed it on the wildflower-scented wind that blew as she flew past. And he wasn't even sure she wore perfume. He hoped he wasn't all sweaty.

Ginny refused to get too comfortable, which was starting to happen, so she let go and stepped back, ending the hug. "Okay. Well... bye." She moved to go but remembered something she wanted to say. "Just some advice. The reason why Harry... sorry... always gets the Snitch out from under you is because you always stop for a moment to smirk at him and gloat that you're about to beat him. In that moment, you lose."

Draco thought about it and hated to admit that she was probably right. "So I should not do that?"

"Not that I want to help Slytherin beat my team, but yeah. You might not want to do that."

"I'll consider it," he said, "right after I wash off these Weasley germs."

She saw that he was trying not to smile. And not a mean smile... a nice smile. She knew he had to say things like that to keep some sense of normalcy, because their relationship was in the process of changing, but they didn't know into what. She nodded, herself smiling, letting him know it was okay.

"Good. You're a fast flyer, and you generally see the Snitch before even he can."

"So, the best you can say about me is I have better eyesight than that four-eyed git? Thanks a lot."

"I'm not talking about eyesight. Just sight. That's a lot. You see **me** better than he does, or ever has. And you have absolutely no reason to." She turned and started to walk away, calling over her shoulder, "I don't know what that means."

Neither did he... yet. About a half dozen strides, and he called out.

"Ginny!"

She stopped but didn't turn around. She waited.

"Why did you come out here?"

She spoke quietly, but he could hear her. "To make sure you were okay."

Ginny walked away then, and he watched until he could no longer see her. And suddenly Draco didn't feel like sulking over a game of Quidditch or a missed Snitch anymore. He had something new... someone better... to seek.


End file.
